Project 5 - Written Work and Revisited Project

Avia Allen
Time Based Art
FA/VISA 2053m
March 26th 2010

Music is for people. A vibrant and active collective of harmonies, bass and rhythm strung together to create a holistic entertainment for all to experience. Whether it was a way to express oppression from the slave trade, or to narrate a story through staged dramatic work otherwise known as opera, to grooving in the clubs to the newest dance song, music is an art form that is made by the people for the people. This concept is the driving force for my blog - music generating culture. Music generating culture is a celebration of contemporary popular art/music that is about the urban spaces we inhabit, experience and explore. Seeing as music is one of the greatest elements to have defined our world and culture, it is critical to see how exactly this has formed societies and cultures by exploring what came before and what is now- the future has many in store for us so it remains open ended. More specifically I attempted to not only explore music, but as well explore the youth cultures that it has spawned; these sub-cultures of today are rapidly changing, along with it is the music that drives this change.

My work throughout this semester has basically been a critique of my topic, music generating culture. From starting my search in the 1950’s era, I had an understanding of where and how this music has prevailed in generating a vast array of youth sub-cultures in society. Touching on subjects of original Hipsters in the 1940’s, to Greasers in the 1950’s, Hippies in the 1960’s-70’s, to the Hipsters or “contemporary” culture of today, this study had left me asking numerous questions, some more prominent than others - which subject came first, the culture or the music, and also what is contemporary and why does art need to be contemporary? As an artist, I do not tend to view any art that I create as “contemporary,” but in a sense it proves otherwise as contemporary art is “art of today and the now”. One of the readings that were assigned to us actually touched upon this question that surfaced within my research. According to curator Dieter Roelstraete, he explains that “Contributing to, or participating in, something that does not tolerate definition or other forms of circumscription (so being part of something that is ultimately unknowable: not knowing what we’re doing) is one of the ways in which “culture” in general essentially reproduces itself. This is an important nuance to distinguish, for it necessarily means that contemporary art belongs to the general field of “culture,” whereas art does not (that is to say, not necessarily)” (Roelstraete, 2009). So, contemporary art belongs to a field of “culture” wherein contemporary art is unknowable yet reproductive. This is my stance on what exactly can be considered contemporary- you cannot exactly define art as contemporary as it belongs to culture and since culture is ever changing, it is unknowable what contemporary art is.

The work that I choose to revisit as a final project is the Video Project I did on the Hippy movement. The question evoked for that particular project was “what came first, the culture or the music?.” The project took a very literal approach to answering this question and I guess was not exactly “contemporary” enough to evoke thought and meaning as it was laid out for the audience to watch. I plan to revisit this piece and have a more abstract approach to culture and music. Using two single visuals of classical music culture and popular culture of today, I am making a comparison and opposition affect, or better known as a “Mash -Up” to conclude my topic of music generating culture.

Works Cited

Roelstraete, Dieter. "What is Not Contemporary Art?: The View from Jena". e-flux. March 29 2010 .

Performance Piece

This piece is about media and culture's (and everything that it encompasses) affect on the self. In todays society, we have the opportunity and choice to be "connected" with and "plugged into" all the various channels that society and culture can offer us. It's our choice whether to connect to it or not. So with this concept, I'm exploring whether the self should eliminate certain mediums/channels from the self or connect and be plugged into it.

Plug it In



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